Every year since we launched Cleantech Blog this week marks a massive inflow of green press releases, phone calls, announcements and interview requests. It always seems oddly out of place, and anything important we have to say always just seems lost in the press of Earth Day.

In reality this week is a week for remembrance, introspection, and then a pause before looking forward to an always brighter future.

My remembrance always starts a day earlier. Yesterday, April 21st was Aggie Muster, the day that thousands of Aggies around the world hold the roll call for the absent, where a family member answers”here” for those former students who have died in the previous year and cannot answer for themselves. The roots of Muster date back over a hundred years, and we have formally held Muster since 1922 all around the world.

And today, the day after is Earth Day, now 40 years old, the day we remember our planet, think about what we should be doing better, and recently, make our New Earth Year’s resolutions for what we will do better.

We will remember, we will do better.

And in both cases, look forward to the next year and a bright future standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

Here’s hoping that when we are gone, future generations will hold both their history and their planet dear, will have a reason to mark what we did with our time on Earth with reverence, and will still be working and looking forward to an even brighter, cleaner future for the generations to follow them.